Tag: Liam Fox

Correction, here’s what it means for you for a few months, till the UK leaves all that behind. Don’t you love that, although it is an EU/Canada treaty, somehow the EU flag has disappeared and another, relatively unassociated one, has replaced it? Odd that! A mere oversight, soon to be corrected, I suspect.

But don’t get too attached to the jobs. Remember that in March 2019 they will dry up… Oh, and I see they haven’t removed the UK flag and replaced it with the other signatory to the treaty yet. Sure to happen soon, though. Don’t worry. It’s in the “capable” hands of Liam.

Progressive you say? Taking people and the environment into account, you say?

Oh dear no. That would never do.

No, leave that nonsense to the progressive go ahead countries in the world. Much better for us to stay with the good old days of Empire where folk knew their place, we knew where we were and what was what.

But, strangely, still no one in Liam’s department has sorted the flags thing out. Probably too busy with plans for the royal yacht that Liam’s going to sail around the world on accompanied by Kate Middleton.

But wait! Having Tweeted this last night, the Department for International Trade, more of which you can read about here, removed these tweets this morning. They must have seen the flag error at last.

Or maybe someone pointed out to them that rejoicing in the good fortune of Europe, fortune the UK will not benefit from for more than a few months, only made the UK look sadder and more lonely and isolated.

Still, maybe Liam will sort out his royal yacht and sail off into the sunset, Kate at his side and retake the Empire for his Queen.

I wonder if William will hang out with Adam while they are off on their adventures.

Journalists, and amateur bloggers, of all political persuasions, make mistakes. (I readily acknowledge culpability).

No one is perfect and even with meticulous checking, some little errors can be left unnoticed.

However, it seems that no one ran this piece on Michelle Thomson past the most basic of fact checks.

Additionally, it seems to me that to describe property worth £1 million as an “empire”, in these days of inflated property prices, is a tad of an exaggeration.

It’s not too difficult for professionals to check on these things before they put them in print. Indeed, it is very much easier than it used to be. A few Google searches takes a great deal less time than endless phone calls or searching physically through back copies of newspapers.

Maybe our journalists should consider that.

The Herald has corrected these mistakes in a short paragraph and Michelle Thomson has acknowledged this on Twitter.

Guy Verhofstadt has described the proposals as fantasy. Not the best of starts, but as I read Ian’s piece I became convinced that M Verhofstadt was being quite complimentary.

It seems that what they are proposing is that they spend billions to set up a complex method of replicating the customs union with unproven electronic gadgetry, and a good deal of trust in systems and personal honesty, and ending up with what we already have, but not quite so good.

“Lunatics”, “asylum” and “have taken over”, are all words that come to mind.

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Thanks, Labour. Brilliant idea.

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Has anyone seen Theresa?

Just asking because you’d think that, with a two-year deadline on her to deliver the most complex set of international negotiations undertaken by the UK in 70 years, a cabinet falling down around her ears and biting chunks out of each other, and having wasted 2 months on a pointless election, she might have thought it propitious to take a short break and return to her desk to get on with the day job.

So, if you see her, could you point her in the direction of England, lest she has become lost, or some might say, even more lost…

There’s daft, then there’s stupid, then there’s mad as a box of frogs, then, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Mr Liam Fox:

Firstly, Liam, all male MPs wear ties all the time in the chamber. The Speaker, until very recently, would have throw them out if they didn’t. Do you mean that ALL MPs should wear them? Including your boss Mrs May? Or do you mean they should wear them all the time? Allegedly Mr Rees Mogg stands up for ‘God Save the Queen’ even when he’s in the bath. (Take a lesson Mr Corbyn.) I wonder if Jacob already wears a tie for that?

But, Liam, the UK makes other things besides ties.

What about these wonderful jams? Should MPs wear raspberry or strawberry?

…DOWN TO THE WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENT

I’m not sure, but I suspect that this, from the office of Liam, the disgraced ex-defence minister, Fox, is talking about having the ability to sell off our stuff,, for example, the Scottish Health Service, to whomsoever they want, without any of us pesky jocks kicking off.

According to the Independent, Mrs May’s speech to the Tories little get together in Wales tomorrow, will talk about how Scottish independence would ruin Britain’s chances of getting a good deal from the EU in their Brexit negotiations.

In order to get the deal she wants, she thinks that Scotland must pull together with the “rest of the country”. England, I imagine she means.

She will call upon the Scots to get behind her plans (what plans?) because “we are one people”.

To assume this, given all the recent evidence to the contrary, her audacity must surely know no bounds.

In almost everything and in almost every way, we are very different peoples. In particular, over the Brexit deal she wants to get (and probably has as much of a chance of getting as Munguin has of being the next president of Botswana), we are completely different.

It seems to have completely escaped this woman’s notice that Scotland voted, not narrowly, but very conclusively, to stay in the EU. To be honest, even if we hadn’t I think there’s a fair chance we wouldn’t be backing the chaos her idiot ministers are sleepwalking into. There’s Brexit, and then there’s Brexsuicide.

She seems oblivious to the fact that we elected ONE single Tory out of the 59 Scottish MPs, to contribute to her government in London. One, and by a tiny majority. Whereas in England they managed by hook or by crook (and that might be an appropriate word) they elected Tory government.

We are not one people Mrs May. We are two kingdoms and principality and a province, and we are all very different, with different economies and different needs. (And it might be an idea to remember that there is a British Overseas Territory which also has to be considered into the bargain.)

Whilst May’s party has set about tearing down the welfare state, removing benefits for some of our most vulnerable people, dismantling that part of the NHS over which they have direct control, making life utterly unbearable for the worst off, handing out tax reductions to some of the richest, and with plans to remove the UK from the ECHR she will have the brass neck to say: “Our Plan for Britain is a plan for a brighter future. A plan to make the most of the opportunities ahead and to build a stronger, fairer Britain that is more united and more outward-looking.” Stronger and fairer? Seriously? Fairer? Tell that to the people being assessed for PIP who are being asked why they haven’t committed suicide yet!

No, Mrs May, let me tell you, we Scots don’t believe a single word you say. Not you nor any of your hapless, self-serving amateur ministers, especially you blundering idiot of a Scottish Secretary.

We don’t want to leave Europe at any price, but certainly not under any deal that you or any of your team would ever be able to negotiate. Seriously: David Davis, Boris Johnson. Liam Fox? Liam Bloody FOX???? Please!

Scots didn’t vote for your vile cruel, self-serving, incompetent government. And we don’t want it. if you are comforting yourself that you made a small headway in our General Election, compared to your General Election a year earlier, then you should remember that it is because Labour is even more pathetic than your lot. And remember too that the improvement was largely made in list seats.

Remember standing in front of all those empty seats? Well, go look at the crowds of cheering people in Aberdeen today for OUR leader.

We won’t get behind you. We won’t back your plans(?), which almost undoubtedly mean selling Scotland out, as your predecessors did. We have friends in Europe. They like us. They like our first minister. I suspect that they don’t like you much.

There can be little doubt that if you wanted a cause to succeed in Britain, one of the very last people you’d chose to be the cheerleader for it would be Tony Blair. (But then no one chose him; he just did it.) He undoubtedly has some fans left, although I think most of them form the hard-right-wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Outside of that, I suppose George W Bush likes him, I’m sure that Jim Murphy is still a fan and Mystic Meg look alike, John McTernan, is bound to be lurking somewhere in his slipstream, making prophecies from hell.

But with something as important as Brexit, it might have been comforting if those arguing against Blair had a little more to dish out than personal insults (not that I’m averse to anyone handing Mr Blair his backside on a plate).

Here then, are some questions that another Blair fanboy, Alistair Campbell, has come up with and had published in the European. I lift the text from their website (see link), unaltered and without their permission or Mr Campbell’s. (OK, I’m no fan of Alistair either, but this is good stuff. Credit where it is due.) The illustrations are mine.

So, without further ado, questions to those who are leading the cheers for Brexit:

1. Do you accept that many people who voted Leave did so without knowing the full terms of Brexit?

2. Do you accept that it is open to the people to change their minds if they decide Brexit will in fact harm their own and the country’s interests?

3. Do you accept that there is no monopoly on patriotism and that there might be a patriotic case for wishing to reverse the referendum decision, if enough people feel it will be damaging to the UK?

4. Do you agree the government approach can now Be defined as “Brexit at any cost”?

5. Do you accept that people are entitled to be concerned at the scale of that cost, economically and politically?

6. Do you accept that the financial cost of withdrawal, the UK having to pay for previous EU obligations but not benefit from future opportunities, could be as high as £60bn?

7. Do you agree with the Prime Minister’s and the Chancellor’s former views that maintaining our partnership with the biggest political union and largest commercial market on our doorstep fulfills rather than diminishes our national interest?

8. Is there not something surreal about the Prime Minister and Chancellor now claiming hard Brexit is a huge boon for the country when during the campaign they said the opposite, in Hammond’s case with real conviction?

9. Do you accept that politics, not economics or the genuine national interest, is now driving the Hard Brexit chosen by May?

10. Are you seriously saying the PM’s vision of Britain as a “great open trading nation” is best served by leaving the largest free trading bloc in the world? Might her vision of Britain as a bridge between Europe and the US be more realistic if we remained part of the EU?

11. In what way will her call for a fairer capitalism be met by moving to a low tax, light regulation economy?

12. Do you accept that if the right-wing ideologues pushing a hard Brexit so Britain becomes a low tax, low regulation, offshore hub have their way, we will need huge tax and welfare changes? Were they voted for in the referendum?

13. Will this approach in fact lead to less not more public money for the NHS?

Less not more protection for workers?

14. Is it not the case that the UK government could make these changes now, but wouldn’t because they know they do not have public support for them?

15. Is there any chance at all that Brexit will lead to £350m a week more for the NHS

16. Please define the “big argument” that Tony Blair argues is missing from this pursuit of hard Brexit, and how it will benefit Britain economically.

17. Do you agree that of the many arguments put forward for Leave in the referendum, only immigration and the ECJ (European Court of Justice) are still really being pursued?

18. Do you accept that the Leave campaign deliberately conflated the ECJ and the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights)?

19. Can you confirm that that ECHR is not and never has been a EU body?

20. Can you name any laws the UK has not been able to pass because of the ECJ?

21. Can you confirm that of net immigration into the UK in 2016, over half was from outside the EU?

22. Do you accept that as May wants to keep those EU immigrants who come with a confirmed job offer, and students, this leaves around 80,000 who come looking for work without a job?

23. Do you agree that of these 80,000, roughly a third comes to London, mostly working in the food processing and hospitality sectors; and that the practical impact of Brexit on our “control” of immigration is on analysis less than 12% of the immigration total?

24. Do you agree that most of the immigrants we are talking about in this 12% work hard and pay their taxes?

25. Do you think the biggest constitutional, political, economic and social change of our lifetime is merited by such numbers as set out in questions 22 to 24?

26. Do you accept that the immigration most people worry about – that of people determined to challenge our security and way of life, in the name of a perverted view of Islam – is not affected by Brexit?

27. Do you agree that the post Article 50 negotiations are going to be as complex as any we have experienced, covering a vast number of areas?

28. Do you accept, as a matter of fact, that the single market covers around half of our trade in goods and services?

29. Do you accept that leaving the Customs Union may adversely impact on trade with other countries like Turkey?

30. Can you confirm that we will need to negotiate the replacement of over 50 Preferential Trade Agreements we have via our membership of the EU?

31. Do you accept that EU-related trade is actually two thirds of the UK total?

32. Do you accept scientific research and culture are both going to suffer as a result of Brexit, and indeed already are?

33. Are you content to have the WTO as a fall back strategy should we fail to reach a satisfactory deal within two years?

34. Do you accept this too has enormous complexity attached to it; that we would need to negotiate the removal not just of tariff barriers; but the prevention of non-tariff barriers which today are often the biggest impediments to trade?

35) Do you agree that the fall in the value of sterling against the euro and the dollar as a result of Brexit is an indication that the international financial markets believe we are going to be poorer?

36. Do you accept that therefore the price of imported goods is up and so will be inflation?

37. Do you agree that the single market and enlargement were huge foreign policy successes for the UK?

38. Do you agree that the single market has brought billions of pounds of wealth, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and major investment opportunities for the UK?

39. Do you agree that enlargement has enhanced EU and NATO security?

40. Do you accept that in the early 21st century, most countries are seeking to forge rather than break regional and economic alliances?

41. Do you agree we can do more on issues like the environment with others than alone?

42. Do you agree that the route taken on and since June 23 has helped revive the argument about Scotland leaving the UK?

43. Do you accept that the failure to address the question of how to maintain EU freedom of movement without a hard border between Ireland and the UK is destabilising the peace process?

44. Do you accept the government is obsessed with Brexit, and has no choIie but to be so?

45. Do you accept that the scale of government focus on Brexit is having a detrimental impact on their ability to deal with other issues, such as the NHS, education, the new economy, crime, prisons – and, er, immigration policy?

46. Do you accept there is a cartel of right wing newspapers skewing the debate in the broadcast media, and whose support for May is contingent on her pursuing a hard Brexit policy?

47. Do you agree that had the business survey mentioned by Blair said the opposite – namely huge confidence in Brexit – it would have led the news because the cartel would have splashed on it, not ignored it?

48. Do you accept Brexit has divided the country across its nations, regions and generations, contrary to May’s claim to have 65million people behind her?